page_title: Sea of Okhotsk
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Sea of Okhotsk / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Big map has the full Sea of Okhotsk with Hokkaido, Kuril islands, Kamchatka peninsula and Sakhalin (Karafuto). It includes the Japanese and Russian names with English. 日本語: 大きな地図には、北海道、千島列島、カムチャッカ半島、サハリン（樺太）を含むオホーツク海全体が表示されます。 日本語とロシア語の名前と英語が含まれています。 Русский: Большая карта имеет полное Охотское море с Хоккайдо, Курильскими островами, полуостровом Камчатка и Сахалином (Карафуто). В него входят японские и русские названия с английскими.
context_page_description: The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and north. The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East.
context_section_description: The Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres (611,000 sq mi), with a mean depth of 859 metres (2,818 ft) and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres (11,063 ft). It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south through the La Pérouse Strait.
  In winter, navigation on the Sea of Okhotsk is impeded by ice floes. Ice floes form due to the large amount of freshwater from the Amur River, lowering the salinity of upper levels, often raising the freezing point of the sea surface. The distribution and thickness of ice floes depends on many factors: the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures.
  Cold air from Siberia forms sea ice in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk. As the ice forms it expels salt into the deeper layers. This heavy water flows east toward the Pacific  carrying oxygen and nutrients, supporting abundant sea life. The Sea of Okhotsk has warmed in some places by as much as 3 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, three times faster than the global mean. Warming inhibits the formation of sea ice and also drives fish populations north. The salmon catch on the northern Japanese coast has fallen 70% in the last 15 years, while the Russian chum salmon catch has quadrupled.
  With the exception of Hokkaido, one of the Japanese home islands, the sea is surrounded on all sides by territory administered by the Russian Federation. South Sakhalin and the Kuril islands were administered by Japan until 1945. Japan claims the southern Kuril islands and refers to them as "northern territories".
caption: Sea of Okhotsk full map
exif: {}